12.02.2004

salvation 2

in an earlier post i asked a lot of questions about salvation. this morning in class warren carter was commenting on luke's view of salvation and so i'm going jot down those insights. first off, the greek word for salvation is used only 1 time in matthew, mark, and john with john being the 1. however luke uses it 10 times in his two books. and the word for savior is also lopsided by a 4:1 margin to luke. so any conversation about salvation it seems must include our friend luke, who by the way is not a doctor/physician like everyone seems to think. for luke, salvation seems to have two key attributes. looking at the zacchaeus story jesus claims that zacchaeus has received salvation and not only that, he gets it today. for paul salvation is often a future event. but for luke it happens today. the other really interesting thing is that jesus (not yet crucified and raised) declares that someone is saved. how was it that zacchaeus is saved? all we know is that zacchaeus says he'll sell half of his possessions and give the profit to the poor and he'll repay those he's defrauded 4x what he took from them. considering he was a tax collecter, this would have been a significant amount, if not everything that was left in his bank account. for luke salvation seems to be tied very much to making things right. reconciliation. it seems to have something to do with living rightly/justly.

so the question that i still have is, what is jesus role in salvation? luke 4 gives us some great insights. this is when jesus starts his ministry and after he passes the test in the desert he goes to jerusalem and reads from the isaiah scroll and claims, isaiah's words are fulfilled that day. this verse he reads is about a societal revolution and it is jesus who ultimately brings that revolution to the world. it is he that will proclaim it through word and deed. it may be that we've weighed too heavily on the atonement theories in salvation, when actually those two may be more separate than many of us are willing to accept. i think the death and resurrection still play an important role in salvation, but i'm not quite sure what i think that is just yet. any thoughts?

About Me

i'm married to marie and we have two black cats. vocationally, i'm a youth pastor at a united methodist church in blue springs, mo and i am also enrolled at st. paul school of theology in kansas city. my wife currentely works at nazarene publishing house where she lives the and helps support the consumer driven, conservative, evangelical church that has failed us both and turns our stomachs.
i'm a lifelong christian struggling to find meaning in life. i'm in a strange place of deconstruction and reconstruction in terms of what i think is correct beliefs and correct actions.